Rouse Ruxton

Rouse Ruxton was a resident of Dodge City, Kansas during the 1870s. The brother of Calvin and Homer Ruxton, he engaged in criminal activities such as trashing a saloon and hazing newcomers to the town. In 1876, Rouse and his brothers beset Russian Jewish immigrants Moshe, Zisha, and Semel Gorofsky as Moshe and Semel were praying, and Rouse, annoyed by Zisha's insistence that the Ruxton brothers not interrupt the father and son as they prayed, knocked over Moshe and bound Semel's hands with a lasso. He then dragged him until he was mortally wounded by fracturing his skull on some rocks, upon which the Ruxton brothers fled. Later, Marshal Matt Dillon forced Rouse to pay him $48 in recompense for the damages done to a local saloon, and he would later come to suspect Rouse of the murder of Semel after Gearshon Gorofsky accused Ruxton of perpetrating the act. However, Moshe adhered to the Talmudic law that one could not present a murder accusation unless one personally saw the killer murder the victim, and he refused to make any statements. Later, after Gearshon attempted to kill the Ruxton brothers with a shotgun, Rouse confronted the Gorofsky family at their home one night, attempting to force them to leave town at gunpoint. However, Moshe told Rouse that the family would not leave, and ordered him to turn himself in to the authorities. Rouse, who was afraid of being hanged, decided to do this, but only if Moshe believed his story that Semel's death was an accident. The Ruxton brothers would go to trial, but Moshe backed their story, in accordance with his promise.